“It isn’t necessary you should advertise your respectability that way,” he said. But Broad was not smiling.
“The only thing I ask is that you do not advise the police to withdraw my permits,” he said.
Dick’s eyebrows rose.
“Permits?”
“I carry two guns, and the time is coming when two won’t be enough,” said Mr. Broad. “And it is coming soon.”
CHAPTER XII
THE EMBELLISHMENT OF MR. MAITLAND
THERE was a concert that night at the Queen’s Hall, and the spacious auditorium was crowded to hear the summer recital of a great violinist. Dick Gordon, in the midst of an evening’s work, remembered that he had reserved a seat. He felt fagged, baffled, inclined to hopelessness. A note from Lord Farmley had come to him, urging instant action to recover the lost commercial treaty. It was such a letter as a man, himself worried, would write without realizing that in so doing he was passing on his panic to those who it was very necessary should not be stampeded into precipitate action. It was a human letter, but not statesmanlike. Dick decided upon the concert.
He had finished dressing when he remembered that it was more than likely that the omniscient Frogs would know of his reservation. He must take the risk, if risk there was. He ’phoned to the garage where his own machine was housed and hired a closed car, and in ten minutes was one of two thousand people who were listening, entranced, to the master. In the interval he strolled out to the lobby to smoke, and almost the first person he saw was a Central Office man who avoided his eye. Another detective stood by the stairway leading to the bar, a third was smoking on the steps of the hall outside. But the sensation of the evening was not this evidence of Elk’s foresight. The warning bell had sounded, and Dick was in the act of throwing away his cigarette, when a magnificent limousine drew up before the building, a smart footman alighted to open the door, and there stepped heavily to the pavement—Mr. Ezra Maitland!
Dick heard a gasp behind him, and turned his head to see Elk in the one and only dress suit he had ever possessed.